Post law law post

I am in the middle of my journal petition. Which consists of reading 375 pages of legal material and writing a 20 page paper on it in the span of 14 days. Oh, and there's editing exercises also. But that's not the reason I'm posting.

Weirdly, the reason I'm posting is probably because I'm tired. Or in that odd limbo between feeling like I should be tired (and either ignoring the effects (yet operating under their influence)) and not knowing what to do with myself. And I want to write. It's weird how I always want to write. But I never want to write about anything. And it's gotten so old hat at this point. As anyone who's followed my blog for more than a couple posts knows, my attempts at taking this seriously have been pathetic. And trying to take a hard line stance on the issue hasn't helped. I wrote a decent amount for a while there, but as always, other things took over. I let other things take over. I played in handball tournaments, I studied for finals, I alternated between trying to be healthy and trying not to stress about being healthy.

So here's where I make a list of things that happened this year (otherwise known as bragging):
I won money in two handball tournaments (Tallcorn, Milwaukee)
I passed my first semester classes without trying.
I won a bunch of little handball tournaments.
I made a friend and a bunch of acquaintances.
I got in better shape (marginal, yet acceptable)
I got poorer.
I decided I probably won't want to be a lawyer, though I haven't ruled it out entirely.
I decided I will probably get a PhD after law school (probably in molecular biology).
I avoided spending money on magic (except one tournament entry).
I ate a lot of free food.
I gradually wrecked by bike.
I grew more comfortable talking to people (client interviews, oral arguments, general back and forth).
I took my second semester finals (results TBD)
I am petitioning (results TBD).
I decided I like Minneapolis.
I didn't write (at least nothing significant).

And through all of this, what I really wanted was to buy time until I had something real to write about. But you know what doesn't happen? Anything, at least by itself. It's not like any of the things I'm doing are expanding my horizons, giving me new things to say. I told myself that maybe with time I would have something to say about my past relationship. Maybe I was still too close to it. I know when I've tried to write about it, I still can't use imagery because I always regress into concepts rather than concrete examples. It's so easy to write about "losing love," but so difficult to say it in the form of something real. So I assumed I was still too close to it. I guess I'm still too close to it. Which is annoying at this point, because just like my flirtation with writing, hearing me talk about my relationship is entirely played out. I can only imagine the eye-rolling "I guess I still have to humor him" reaction on the other end of any conversation at this point. And it's completely justified.

Between my three finals I wrote around 10,000 words. Each final was three hours. And the weird thing is, I didn't write enough. I'm not stressing about it, because 1) there's no point; what's done is done and 2) I don't care that much about my grades as long as I still have a scholarship at the end of all this. But also 3) if I care, then if I fail I will be disappointed. And as has been firmly established by now, it's a lot easier to not commit than it is to commit and fail.

There is a Magic player named Gerry Thompson who was recently on a podcast. (The link can be found here if you care: http://manadeprived.com/eh-team-177-cant-blame-badger/)  He decided he was going to put all of his effort into chasing being a platinum-level pro (an achievement which basically enables you to play magic as your job). He was in a good position to do it. People don't decided to do it out of the blue. Usually they have a couple good results and then they decided "well, I've gotten this far without going the extra mile, let's make it happen." And then it either works or it doesn't. In Gerry's case, he flew to Europe, changed his life around a bit, and didn't make it. He came very close. In the interview, he says that it was the first time he's tried for anything in his life. He is quite accomplished by almost any standard. He is a respected author for the community, he performs well, and he has made a decent amount of money. After he failed, he quit. He took an internship designing magic cards and gave up playing for basically a year. He's back now, which is what the interview was about.

Gerry and I are similar in quite a few ways, which I'll take the time to point out despite their obviousness. I probably appear relatively accomplished to an outside observer, but I know I've never really applied myself. I take opportunities as they present themselves, and I operate well under these sorts of fake-stress conditions. Gerry came to the conclusion that he shouldn't have tried. He should have just kept doing what was working and let the chips fall as they may. He didn't like the stress, he didn't like having put himself out there, etc. And that's tempting.

To bring this full circle (meaning: back to talking about stupid things everyone has heard way too much about from me), I've been wondering recently if I ever even tried. Did I ever fight for my girl? My writing? My education?

I've told myself that it's fine. I didn't have to fight for my girl because "I believe everyone has the right to make their own choices." I didn't have to fight for my writing because "I'll have more experiences to write about/don't have time now anyway/a million other reasons." And I definitely didn't have to fight for my education. Because "it was easy, and I don't need a 4.0 anyway." And you know what? I'm fine with almost all of that. Except sometimes when I'm lonely, I wish I had fought for my girl. When I'm filling out job applications, I wish I had tried at school. And when I'm wondering what the hell I'm doing with my life, I wish I had really committed to writing (and that I wasn't lonely).

I have a policy of not regretting my actions. I know they were justified in the moment, and that things are probably as good as they would have been otherwise. Objectively, I know I wouldn't be happy right now if I had chosen differently about any of these issues. I know that getting published is next to impossible. I know it involves things and processes I wouldn't like doing. I know that if in some weird world I was dating someone long distance, things would be much harder than they are now. There is an ideal world where I'm happily married, writing every day and not caring about money. And it's so easy to wonder if there was a route to that world.

But Gerry had an ideal world where he was a platinum pro, and he went about it as best he could. There was a way to get there. Other people did it, after all. But the odds weren't good. And let me tell you, winning at magic is a lot simpler than winning at life.

So that's the end of that segment. I sort of want to use this post to sum up my first year of law school. Unfortunately, what I've been telling everyone is basically the truth. I've been asked countless times how my first year went, and I always respond "I don't really know; I was too busy playing handball." I actually haven't been playing as much recently as I was earlier in the year. I've gotten good enough at this point that I've actually started attempting to rest on my laurels, which is stupid, since I have no laurels. I'm just in a weird spot where I can't get good games out of the people that show up to play, and I haven't failed badly enough to want to drill by myself. So basically, I haven't put myself out there for this either. At least I still have the reassurance that "if I really tried, I could be as good as the people that beat me."

I could say something here about how I'm going to try. About how I'm going to jump rope, row, run, and drill every day. And you know what? I might wind up doing that. But I'm tired of breaking promises because I can't hold myself accountable. The temptation is to say that this next promise will be different, but unless I'm making it to someone other than myself, it doesn't mean enough to me to follow through. That has become clear.

(As an aside, this is why I am amazing at group projects. As soon as someone is relying on me, I am proactive, I step my game up, I make sure things get done, etc. But personal projects always get done at the last minute. I single-handedly wrote every group project I was involved in this year. And it was fun. But my own success doesn't mean that much to me.)

Now that I've started thinking about it, it's fun to wander down the "where else does this apply?" train of thought. In tennis I showed up to every practice, every clinic, etc. and worked as hard as I could because I wanted to be a model for what could be accomplished if you put the time and effort in. In handball, I show up to every practice that doesn't conflict with school because I know people will be there and I want to be the guy who puts time in. But I don't try as hard because I don't have to to win. In school I've established my image as the slacker, so I find it impossible to try. The obvious trick, then, is to set an initially high standard, make it a precedent that others are aware of, and use that as fuel for my commitment. This doesn't work for writing because of my insecurity with letting others read what I write. I tried brazenly not being embarrassed, and it almost worked, but then I didn't see any results and reverted back to cowardice.

Even now I backpedal. I hedge my comments with "I know this is played out/old hat" even though if I were just confident, nothing would change. The people reading this aren't reading because they hold me to a high standard; they're reading because they care about me. And if they care about me, they care about what I'm thinking and what's bothering me, even if it really is the same stuff as always. (Here's where I would normally make a commitment to do better about that, but won't because... duh.)

This has been a pretty dissatisfying post to write, which is fitting, because a lack of commitment is itself dissatisfying. I hope I figure out a way to solve this problem. I'm not content with the way things are. So I'm going to leave it at that.

Thanks for reading.